Examiners from the British Horse Society are to send out results by post because they're fed up with being verbally abused and even attacked by failed candidates.

Examiners from the British Horse Society are to send out results by post because they're fed up with being verbally abused and even attacked by failed candidates.

The BHS, based at Stoneleigh Deer Park, Stoneleigh, conducts exams in riding and horse care leading to a range of professional qualifications for the equestrian industry.

Until now, examiners would tell candidates the results in person at the end of their gruelling, day-long assessment.

But in recent months examiners have been on the receiving end of the equine equivalent of road rage.

Last September, the father of a failed student grabbed an examiner by the neck. In another incident, a 19-year-old who had failed an exam started a fight with his father.

They frightened beginner riders and their horses by throwing stones. And in a third incident a middle-aged candidate who had failed started swearing at the examiner and other students.

BHS bosses fear the problems are fuelled by the extreme pressure on 16 plus candidates to pass the exams and the high expectations of parents who spend thousands on teaching their children to ride.

Chairman of the BHS examinations advisory group Carole Broad said: "It is a long, tiring day for candidates and can provoke the equestrian equivalent of road rage, both from them and their parents.

"These young adults fail because they are not good enough but they cannot accept that. We seem to live in a world where your children are not supposed to fail anything and someone has to be blamed for failure.

"It is often the parents who seem to take failure the worst and then take it out on the examiners."